THE MOATED GRANGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 84, 9 April 1925, Page 12

THE MOATED GRANGE.

CHAPTER XIX. Anthony came to the breakfast table with a clean morning face and Ins hair sleek from the water. Dash, who had listened to the singing voice in the bathroom, his head comically on one side,, with the flap of the ear that listened iust slightly turned back, ran with a joyous bark to meet the young man as he came into the breakfast room, where j there was a cheerful fire, and the bacon and sausages sizzled over the heaters. Mrs. de Burgh, holding out a greeting hand from where she sat behind the lea-cups, remarked a little sadly tha 4 ; Dash was always a man's dog, although he condescended to her and Beata. Captain Napier had to be back at Warley by nine o'clock on the Sunday evening. Fortunately, the moon was full, and, if the frost lasted, the walk would be agreeable. His suitcase was easily carried, he said, adding with a laugh that he always travelled light. He looked very goodly in his grey mufti, the girl thought, with the light on his sleek, slightly curling head and hia laughing eyes, just a little shy/ full upon her. It was absurd to think that they had known each other for such a little time and had met in such a chance way; and he was so humble and grateful for their acceptance of him. « Certainly Anthony Napier's way with women was to be commended. He looked at Mrs. de Burgh with such an air of homage whenever lie had occasion to address her. .But usually he looked at Beata as though he could not help it, as though his eyes were drawn that way. "What are you going to do this morning?" Mrs. de Burgh asked as the sun came in at the window and made a miniature splash of light on the silver teapot she was handling. "What do you think?" She looked at Anthony Napier, who coloured a little while he laughed. It was an endearing way he had to colour easily. "I was thinking," he began, and hesitated. "Please go on," said Mrs. de Burgh. "I warn you I am not going to make any expeditions in this weather. They are for the young. I might walk a little way to get my blood into circulation, but " "I_was thinking," said the young man, again with the ingenuous blush, "that we might look for a .church, if it is not too far off. I'm rather a slacker, as a rule, about Church parade, but, just because —it is so nice to be here." Mrs. de Burgh said afterwards that it was charming, adding naively, that one did not expect too much churchgoing from men, and it was he should have put it that way, as a thanksgiving. She went with them when they were * ready, saying that she would go a cer-tain-distance and bring back D&sh, since they were bent on church-going. She* found Mrs Cronch making her bed when she went to put on her furs, wearing that air of a dull resignation which had come to her during the last few days. She answered her mistress' question by saying that Cronch had not yet come back, but she supposed he would, since lie had come before. Something iii the patience, the dumb resignation of Mrs. Cronch's look moved Mrs. de Burgh. It was as though an animal, suffered. - . ■ "My dear soul!" she said, impulsively, and pressed a little fluttering kiss on Mrs. Cronch's cheek, which suddenly flamed darkly. "You shouldn't do it, my' dear, you shouldn't do it. Not to the likes of mc," said Mr 3. Cronch, with an almost painful humility, and turned back to her bed-making as though she was overwhelmed. But the dull resignation had lifted from her face. -She looked brighter, more human. Dash was with difficulty deterred from the prospect of a longer walk, and accompanied Mrs. de Burgh with a rather lagging gait, after Beata and Anthony Napier had bone on their way. He stopped now and again to turn and look wistfully the way they had gone. But after a time he apparently made up his mind that it was no use crying over spilt milk, and trotted along quite cheerfully by Mrs. de Burgh's side. Far and near the snow showed dazzlingly bright in the sunshine; in the shadows it was a cold deep indigo by comparison. She was nearing the "house when- she paused suddenly, seeing before her black upon the snow a queer figure of a man. Croneh—was it Cronch? Could it be he? If it was Cronch he was strangely altered from the man they had found at their first coming. The figure shuffled. There was something about it 3 shoulders black and something that flapped as lie walked. Ib might be an old coat fastened by a button across the chest, leaving the sleeves flapping. The figure had a queer resemblance, seen against the snow, to a ragged, dilapidated old crow. It was not possible it could be Cronch. Cronch had obviously been going down hill of late, but he had hardly gone so fast that he could make such a scarecrow of himself. Where on earth had he sprung from? He had appeared so suddenly; one moment . she had been dazzled by the snow to the point of seeing nothing but the silent, scintillatting world, its trees coated in rime. The next the strange figure had been there with the half-animal shambling trot which she could hardly believe to be Cronch's. 'The figure disappeared in the steely Shadow of the house, or was invisible to her. It must be Cronch. He'had crossed the bridge over the moat and gone into the courtyard head* KfPITV 1 -" 1 ' * '""« l " toad. &h e ]i ad j tliou<*lifc Cronch might be equa l in an emergency to handling Cronch, and was to be depended upon if danger menaced her or Beata. He was a flabby man, and she was a big massively built woman There had been something sinister about that shambling figure. She was glad she had not come upon it in twilight or dark She recalled with aversion Beata's *story of' Cronch's cruelty to the cat wondering .what had become of the' wretched ,victim. ■ As though in answer she heard a pitifiil mew close at hand, the small sound a cat Snakes when it just it 3 mouth and closes it again. She looked about her, There was no sign of a cat» On one side lay the windmill, with its rusted sails, the other the Temple with the coffin of little Thekla Pompilia who had died twenty-

three years after Christ was born. She turned her eyes from one side to the- other. There was nothing to account for the mewing. The door of the windmill hung on its rusty hinge as it had hung since they came. She know what she should find inside, dead leaves drifted thickly, a broken wheelbarrow, a rusted lawn-mower, various old garden implements. The cat was not there. She had not supposed it would be. Ivy had run over the windmill, and long festoons of it, caught when the sails of the mill moved in the last storm, still trailed upon them. As she crossed the bridge by which the grotesque figure had gone she- heard the faint mewing again, but at a greater distance. It disturbed her. Perhaps the cat was lying somewhere unable to move. The mewing was so small and pitiful. She could see the little pink cavity of the cat's mouth and the rough tongue as she made the mew. CHAPTER XX. Mrs. Crouch opened the door at her knock, and looked at her with a worshipping expression that redeemed the poor plain face. "Sure your dog for you could die With n<) truer heart than I." The lines came to Delia de Burgh's mind as she met that gaze. It was I strange and pathetic that a little I humanity on her part should have such a feeling. ''No, Cronch had not come back. Had madam thought he had? " The formal "madam" seemed to go oddly with the adoration in the half-blind eyes. Again Mrs. de Burgh was afraid. It did not matter so much now when the sun shone on the white landscape and everything was bright. But to-night Anthony Napier would be gone. There would be just three women in the house against the ghosts and terrors. Captain Napier lias been so splendidly masculine, so reassuring. H e had laughed at the ice-cold room aS at everything else. "If we had the carpet up," he had said, looking down at the floor, "we should find an opening over the water. I wonder when the moat was cleaned out, by the way. I believe the Egertons had it dredged regularly. It smells rather foul. I wonder If you ought not to move out of these rooms. They have a cold aspect. The sunny rooms are all the other side of the house." It had been easy to accept sound common sense by daylight when Anthony Napier was there, but the night, when they were just three women and a dog was quite another matter. It was true that a certain foul smell had been coming into the house. The emanations from the stagnant water had been hanging about, making them slack and heavy, till Anthony Napier had come in like the west wind to. blow the cobwebs away. And that delightful boy, Derek Jekyll, and the Kirke boys, why, when the winter had relaxed its grip and these friendly neighbours could come and go, the Moated Grange would be quite a different place. It was disquieting that Cronch had disappeared again. Where had he gone to after he had crossed the bridge and entered the courtyard? As Mrs. de Burgh asked the question mentally she remembered with something >|f fear the suddenness with which the scarecrow figure had sprung upon the snow. Was it Cronch ? Despite his deterioration, it was not like Cronch to appear in that tatter-demalion garb. Was she seeing tilings? Had it been a delusion? Some cobweb of the mind or something, nothing, that took shape before eyes wearied and dazzled with the glare of the sun on the snow. •She went upstairs to take off her outdoor things, and suddenly she was conscious of the heavy smell in the room. There was something sickening and loathsome about it. The ice on the moat had broken up and liberated the foulness which had been kept in check by the frost. How -did it come that she had not noticed it before? It must have become very much worse. She could taste the horrid smell. It seemed ''to cling to her lips, the smell, the taste of rottenness. It must have been poisoning them before it had become so apparent that it could no longer be ignored. .She closed her window ■ which opened on the moat, and did the same in Beata's room, opening the doors into the corridor and the corridor windows which looked on the courtyard, so as to get a draught thrugh. She said to herself that they might change their rooms. If they had known of her Ladyship's rooms the other side of the house they would have chosen them. They were beautiful rooms, and they got all the winter sun. Why had they gone on living in rooms with a cold eastern aspect while those other rooms were available and full of sun? It was no wonder they had been out of sorts. She called Mrs. Cronch into consultation. Mrs. Cronch, sniffing about the bedroom, agreed that there was "something faint," and suggested a dead rat in the moat. Glancing at her face as she lifted it to the cold light, Mrs. de Burgh, not for the first time,' had a curious sense that she had seen Mrs. Cronch somewhere before. The flat Tartar nose, the wide flat face, the sunken eyes with their sparse eyebrows—she had seen them somewhere before; but it was a very vague memory. After all, in London alone there were thousands of such faces. Mongolian was it? She put the baffling memory away from her, and, for the first time, she wondered why Cronch had married Mrs. Cronch. As "head of twenty" he must have had many opportunities of marriage. - Mrs. Cronch straightened herself from a corner where she had been sniffing. "Taint in the house," she said. "Very like 'tis a rat in the moat all blowed up an' horrid. That there. Dash he went in with a splash yesterday, and the ice gave with him. Lucky he didn't drown. He'll have let out the rat maybe." "Oh! I didn't know about Dash." Mrs. de Burgh was startled. "I should ! have been frightened for the dog." "No use tellin' when 'twas all over. I were doin' the beds when I heard the splash. I'd have gone in myself after him rather than Miss Beata should fret for her dog. Not that what give under him would hold mc! But before I could holler he was out. Pie didn't know as it weren't dry land, the creature." "I'm afraid he's going blind!" said [Mrs. de Burgh, sitting down on her bed. I"I must consult someone about him. It would have been terrible if he had not been able to save .himself. We have ; grown so fond of Dash." i Dash came and put his head on her knee and sighed. "Yes, indeed," she said, smoothing the beautiful forehead. "A nice state we ! should have been in if anything had Irf P r"?T }° you -" s,,c was * Dash. I don t know how we are «oing to part with, you when we &»ve thfs " I pray that won't be for long." said Mrs. Cronch, with sudden fervour. Arid than as though she repented, she added: Xet I wouldn't keep you. 3 Tis ton 'lonely for the likes nf'yoi,. All very w™

for Croncli that has his temptations an' mc, that's done with the world. I don't suppose as Sir Hilary will ever come back. Croneh, he kep' his temptations under, livin' here, but that's gone by. Somewhere he gets it. I don't know that we mightn't as well go out of it now Croneh has broke loose again. We might as well go back to the lodgers again. If you comes to think on it, the place is too lonely for a man like Croneh that loves his newspaper an' his club. All very well for the likes o' mc. I ain't no'good to anyone, as Crouch says. I knew I wasn't his equal; but Nellie, she never saw much wrong with her ma." She wiped a tear from the blind eye as she had done before when she talked of Nellie. It was something Mrs. de Burgh could not bear. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said softly, "about Nellie and Crouch and his temptations. Perhaps the temptations wouldn't have been so bad if he'd had Nellie." , Bhe had been moved to comfort the poor woman, but she was startled by the sudden light on Mrs. Crouch's poor plain face. "God bless you, madam," she said, fervently, "for your kind words. If Xollie had lived Croneh might ha' been a better man. 1 won't say he's been a good 'iisbin to mc, for that he hasn't — not that I deserved it. But he was fair took up with Nellie. She weren't like us—pretty an' ladylike she were—and Croncli was proud of her. But there! I don't have any right to the likes o' Nellie, and I've nothink to complain of. She didn't ought to ha' been my child. I only hope she'll win forgiveness for us where she is." Again the tears came from the blind eye and ran down her cheek. "When the weather is better I am going to ask a doctor friend of mine who is a famous eye-doctor, to come down here to see mc," Mrs. de Burgh said. "He might be able to do something for you, and for poor Dash. I don't think he'd refuse to help Dash." "He'll do nothink to help mc," said Mrs. Croneh, and turned away her-Head. "What growed on my eye was a judgment. Maybe in consideration of that the Lord would forgive mc my sins and save poor Croneh." "Oh, my dear soul," began Mrs. de Burgh, but got no further, because Mrs. Croneh remembered that her meat-pie was in the oven, and would be burning if the oven was too hot. Mrs. de Burgh followed her downstairs after an interval. She was thinking about Mrs. Croneh and her poor blind eye, and Nellie and Croneh's temptations, and Mrs. Croneh's attitude of her being a great sinner—an absurd thing, on the face of it. Despite her unprepossessing appearance, which had ceased to affect Mrs. de Burgh and Beata, the woman was a kind, harmless creature. They had often wondered why they had thought her so ugly at first. Mrs. de Burgh was thinking also, with a retrospective pity and terror, of Dash's adventure on 'the ice. It would have been so terrible if he had not been able to save himself. Absorbed in her thoughts, she took the turn towards her Ladyship's Wing, and, reaching the mahogany door that shut off the corridor, she was surprised and pleased to find the key in the lock. The discovery decided her upon something she had been about to discuss with Mrs. Croneh. Had they not better change their rooms to the sunny side of the house? The day they had visited the wing she had noticed that, despite the winter day and the shuttered windows, the room smelt dry and warm. They could not continue sleeping over the moat, now the horrid smell had arisen. She wondered what Mrs. Croneh would think of the idea? Mrs. Croneh thought very well of it. They would be much better in the sunny rooms. They had often had a fire there. The rooms had been kept regularly aired. Mr. Carden had never been as well as when he slept in that wing. "Mr. Carden?" "The old gentleman we had here after Sir Hilary went, my first tenant. He died when I were in hospital with my operation. Croneh had charge of him before, an' he were glad to come. Poor old gentleman, he were childish. He'd quarrelled with all belongin' to him. Cantankerous he were. I often wondered myself how Croneh bore with him. P'raps we'd no right to have him here seem' we was Sir Hilary's servants, but the only one he had'in the world—she were a niece—went off with a gentleman she'd married to Africa. They paid Croneh well to take him in an' look after him. He'd run through his money. Leastways, there wasn't much of it. Croneh, he had a blow-out in London after the old gentleman died. Said he couldn't bear the place. I were alone six weeks after I came home that time. Croneh came back then a proper objec*. He hasn't wanted to go again till now the temptation's took him again. 'Tis a weary world." She stooped to the oven and inspected the meat-pie. When she lifted a red face .she spoke in a- matter-of-fact tone. "I never were one to let the grass grow under my feet," she said. "I've the sheets and pillow-cases in the hot-air cupboard. You'll sleep in her Ladyship's Wing to-night, and wake to the sun in the mornin'. A nasty dark aspec' I calls the front of this house." "I'll come and make the beds with you," said Mrs. de Burgh. "I love bedmakiug." "You're sure it's no trouble?" said Mrs. Croneh, and protested no more. In the act of turning back the sheets on the bed in her Ladyship's room, which was to be Beata's, Mrs. de Burgh asked a question. It was a friendly question asked out of the certain intimacy which had growH up between her and Mrs. Croneh. As she had expressed it, Mrs. Croncli was a great comfort to her. "How did you come to marry Croneh?" she asked. "We was servants to the same lady," said Mrs. Croneh, stooping to pat the silken surface of the sheet. "She was very good. She left mc two hundred pounds." "Ah!" Mrs. de Burgh thought she understood. So that was why Crouch had married Mrs. Cronch. "What a splendid windfall," she said. "Weren't you delighted?' "It weren't a windfall," said Mrs. Cronch, gloomily. " 'Twere promised. Cronch, he used to say I'd never get it, that Mrs. Ansell would leave all to charities. There were no luck in it when I did. Cronch's temptations all come back, an' there were the patents. He runned through it fast. She'd left mc some furniture, too, an' we'd set up furnished lodgin's for gentlemen, and Mr. Carden he'd come. We was all comfortable for a while, and then Cronch broke out. There was that there shark that took his money for nothink. Many's the place we were out of after that. Then there was Nellie, and he tried, he really did try for Nellie's sake. But she couldn't stay " She choked a little before going on. When she spoke again it was with a naive pride. "Maybe you'd have heard tell of Mrs. Ansell. She died as we done her hair." She looked down at her hands queerly as , she spoke. "Lovely hair she had for an old lady. I often 'thought it took the strength nut of lmr. Sim °->«m w,i,"i.--

towards the last able to carry the weight of them beautiful pearls she wore about her neck. Why, they went down near to her knees. Thousands they was worth, an' she was always frightened of burglars." Her eyes fluttered in the strangest way as she looked at Mrs. de Burgh. "They thought at first I might have had something to do with it," she said. "I were arrested; but the doctor proved her heart were wore out, so I were discharged. She hadn't been touched." Her voice rbse a little, and suddenly Mrs. de Burgh remembered a row of pictures in an illustrated paper at Glen Assaroe. So that was why Mrs. Cronch's face had seemed familiar. (To be continued daily.)